Healthy Sesame Chicken Chopped Salad: Paleo & Whole30

Growing up, my best friend’s mom would always make this sesame chicken chopped salad. It was what she always brought to gatherings and what she always made us during the summer. I love it so much so I decided to make a healthy, Paleo version. You know, without the sugary dressing and wonton strips mixed in. 😉

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A few months ago I needed a salad to bring to a party. Not only do I hate showing up empty handed, but it’s always best practice to bring something you know you can eat when you’re trying to eat healthy. This salad is always a crowd pleaser. It’s also a pretty quick one to make in a large batch.

I prefer to use chicken thighs for sesame chicken chopped salad because they tend to absorb a lot of flavor and stay really juicy. You can totally use chicken breasts too if you’d rather. You’ll first want to mix up the dressing because you’re going to use a few tablespoons of it to marinade the chicken. I hardly ever have enough foresight to marinade it longer than 20 minutes. If you have longer, great. If not, oh well. No one is gonna ask you. Probably. 😉

Almost all of the ingredients I used I ordered from Thrive Market which makes feeding a crowd (or making a ton of meals for myself) really cheap. Plus they offer 20% off of your first 3 orders which is a deal that’s hard to pass up.

If you don’t like a heavily dressed salad, wait to add the dressing until you’re ready to eat. I just mix it in a glass Pyrex bowl that I can bring with me along with the Tupperware the salad is in or store in the fridge. If you want the cabbage to absorb the dressing and become more of a coleslaw, add the dressing in and refrigerate for a few hours before serving! It’s awesome either way!

Nutrition Facts:

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About paleobailey

I’m Bailey. Whole30 Certified Coach. Former 300 pound chip eatin' couch potato. Current Paleo goddess. Just kidding. No, but I have found my passion for health, cooking and finally living like I mean it, all while dropping over 120 pounds naturally. Read More...

My family was tired of the chicken recipes we usually ate and wanted a change. I made this and even my kids loved it! Instead of just mixing the dressing in, I left it on the side so we could put a little on it in case it was too strong for them. My son went back and got more with even more dressing on it and mixed it well. We ate this with homemade potato salad. My hubby couldn’t wait to take it for lunch the next day! I will be making this again! Oh, and we used gf soy sauce since I couldn’t find coconut aminos… delicious!

Omg this tastes exactly like the Asian chicken salad I used to eat at Wendy’s every day (when I was 18 and fast food salads were the peak of my healthy eating). It is so delicious! I love the crunch of the almonds and the dressing is great as well. Always looking for non mayo slaw recipes. Thank you! This was so good I had to leave a review after I raved about it on insta stories.

You can use regular, not toasted sesame oil if you have it, or replace with avocado or olive oil. And yes! I’d just double the white sesame seeds 🙂 The black ones mostly just make it look a lil’ fancy, doesn’t alter taste! Enjoy!!

This makes a HUGE portion of one delicious Asian salad! I make it for a week of lunches & I’m onto making it a second time now. the only thing I change is using fresh mandarins & plenty of them. Just yum! Thanks for sharing such a yummy, easy recipe x

Hey Donna! I didn’t do the nutrition info for this salad because so many use it differently as either a side salad or a full meal. I’d say it probably makes about 5-6 servings as a full meal. For the nutrition info you can enter it into whatever you use to calculate/track, such as myfitnesspal 🙂

Hey there! Fruit isn’t off limits all together with keto, there’s still nutritional value to them, really if you omit them or not, that totally depends on how many carbs you personally do per day and what you want to use them on. If you used cuties or halos (the little tangerine type oranges), there’s 6.5 net carbs in one, and half of one of those would be plenty for 1 serving of the salad so you’d be looking at about 3.25 net carbs from the fruit. Or you could omit altogether and the salad is still super super good! 🙂

I’ve gotten them at Target and Whole Foods before (but I haven’t bought at Whole Foods in a while being they last forever, so I don’t know haha!) But, this is the brand I get https://amzn.to/2rLdaZL. Honestly though, you can just sub for white sesame seeds. It doesn’t change the flavor much (black sesame seeds are a tiny bit nuttier) but it’s no biggie!

Woo! I LOVE the chicken and the dressing too. I grill chicken that’s been marinaded in it and then use the other half for salad dressings with the grilled chicken. It’s like a weekly staple in the summer 🙂 Thank you so much for coming back and letting me know you enjoyed it! It’s super appreciated 🙂 – B

At my hubby’s request I am about to make this for the 3rd time in three weeks. We love it fresh and it makes the best leftovers for lunches! Thank you!
I’ve been making it with one bag of the pre cut cabbage slaw and a bag of the broccoli slaw.

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I’m Bailey. Former 300 pound chip eatin' couch potato. Current Paleo goddess. Just kidding. No, but I have found my passion for health, cooking and finally living like I mean it, all while dropping over 120 pounds naturally.